We actually use a reading/spelling program that says that, despite what people think, most of English *does* follow rules. The problem is that people just don't know that many of them. Yes, i is often before e, but there are classes of words that have ei (like neighbor, weigh, etc.), etc. I have learned *so* much from it! Like why have and give have an e at the end... because English words don't end with v. And why horse has an e at the end... because it clarifies that it's an s sound, but not a plural word. Sometimes the words are borrowed words so they follow the rules of the language they come from, etc. You see that in some ie/ei words that come from the German, where two vowels generally means you pronounce the second vowel as a long sound.

I think that the silent e making the vowel says it's name is made clearer if you say that the silent e makes the vowel *long*. The problem is that kids often have trouble understanding what a long vowel is. So we often say that a long vowel is when the vowel says it's name. It's true for most of the vowels, but u can either say yoo or just oo. So you have to give that little bit of explanation in there. I think there is actually a rule for when it makes the yoo sound (cute) or just the oo sound (nude), probably something to do with the consonant that comes before it, but we haven't gotten to that lesson yet.

This reading/spelling program is so interesting that my husband will actually listen in from the next room, and we'll be in mid lesson, and we'll suddenly hear him say, "Really? Wow! I never knew that was why that worked that way!" or whatever. It's pretty funny.

I know how you feel! It's great when you start to realise how regular English is, despite what we're all told and how irregular we all tend to assume it is. Your reading/spelling program sounds pretty cool. The silent e can either go "yoo" or "oo" with u, yes, and there is a straightforward rule to tell which is which. As with most rules in English, it's very near 100%, also.

It's always great to see children who previously couldn't read a thing learn a dozen rules really well and then, a few weeks later, suddenly be able to pick up a book or a newspaper and just start reading off the bat. The trouble is, not many people know the rules, so they end up learning a whole bunch of individual cases instead of the one general thing that covers them all.

SS dad returned today, actually. He was unimpressed that his son learnt the word "girl" before "boy" (we teach the er/ir/ur diphthong before the oi/oy one for no particular reason except that it's more common...) and made this known very loudly and disruptively. As is almost always the case, sadly, the unreasonable parents tend not to just strike once. Still, I thought we'd get at least a week of peace.

Too bad for his son. He's above his grade level in reading and spelling by now at least, I suppose. Poor kid.

the gist: the 7 year old boy was climbing all over a war memorial, fell off, dislodged a plaque on the way down that landed on him and gashed his head. Mum is going to sue the council.

what I think isn't really printable.

He shouldn't have been there anyway....

Why not?

I meant climbing all over the memorial. And the way the article describes it the boy was climbing on top of the flat memorial (sounds pretty high up) and he stepped over the plaque that was on top of where he was walking slipped and fell and the plaque fell after him... my question is: why was the plaque on top anyway? wouldnt that you know, make it kinda hard to read?

the gist: the 7 year old boy was climbing all over a war memorial, fell off, dislodged a plaque on the way down that landed on him and gashed his head. Mum is going to sue the council.

what I think isn't really printable.

He shouldn't have been there anyway....

Why not?

I meant climbing all over the memorial. And the way the article describes it the boy was climbing on top of the flat memorial (sounds pretty high up) and he stepped over the plaque that was on top of where he was walking slipped and fell and the plaque fell after him... my question is: why was the plaque on top anyway? wouldnt that you know, make it kinda hard to read?

Doesn't really matter why the plaque was on top - the kid shouldn't have been mucking up there.

Actually, I hope the whoever owns the memorial sues the woman for the cost of repair.

"I feel sarcasm is the lowest form of wit." "It is so low, in fact, that Miss Manners feels sure you would not want to resort to it yourself, even in your own defense. We do not believe in retaliatory rudeness." Judith Martin

the gist: the 7 year old boy was climbing all over a war memorial, fell off, dislodged a plaque on the way down that landed on him and gashed his head. Mum is going to sue the council.

what I think isn't really printable.

There is no way that that little bandage on the kid's head covers a 10-cm long gash. (For those of us in the non-metric US, that's a hair short of four inches.) *I* clonked my own head in almost the same place when something I was sawing got kicked up by the saw. There was a gash, there was considerable blood, and while it was sore for several weeks, I'm not "scarred for life." This was in August, and now you can't even tell where it was.

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It seems the child was walking on the stone wall near the memorial in the second and third photos not the main memorial that the older boys were arrested for climbing. So it was a child walking on a wall which has a big sandstone block in the middle of it. That block should not have been loose. The council should consider themselves lucky that it didn't fall by someone leaning on it at some other time when someone was standing under the wall.

Kids walk on the top of walls all the time. It's great for building balance. I wouldn't let my son walk on a wall that high, but I am a little protective. And I don't see a big issue with a child walking on a wall on a war memorial in a park. Kids play on the walls and some exhibits (like the big guns) at our main memorial in Canberra all the time and some of my wonderful childhood memories are playing on the guns and the decommissioned tanks they had.

Not saying the Mum isn't overreacting to this but she's probably had a big shock and that block should have been properly secured.

Edited as I just remembered why they closed an exhibit to being played on and it is a sensitive matter between Australia and Japan.

It seems the child was walking on the stone wall near the memorial in the second and third photos not the main memorial that the older boys were arrested for climbing. So it was a child walking on a wall which has a big sandstone block in the middle of it. That block should not have been loose. The council should consider themselves lucky that it didn't fall by someone leaning on it at some other time when someone was standing under the wall.

Kids walk on the top of walls all the time. It's great for building balance. I wouldn't let my son walk on a wall that high, but I am a little protective. And I don't see a big issue with a child walking on a wall on a war memorial in a park. Kids play on the walls and some exhibits (like the big guns) at our main memorial in Canberra all the time and some of my wonderful childhood memories are playing on the guns and the decommissioned tanks they had.

Not saying the Mum isn't overreacting to this but she's probably had a big shock and that block should have been properly secured.

Edited as I just remembered why they closed an exhibit to being played on and it is a sensitive matter between Australia and Japan.

Well, one reason why you do not walk on walls is that they are not designed for that, and safety features that we would expect to find in, say, playground climbing structures are not in place.

Basically, the woman is complaining that she let her child climb on something that could be dangerous, and WHOA! it was dangerous! How could she possibly have predicted that?

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If the wall is part of the memorial I would liken it to allowing a child to climb on head stones in a grave yard.

Exactly. It's disrespectful. Go climb on a wall in a park if you want to. A memorial is not the place to play on.

I disagree especially in this case as this memorial is for a ship (which was scuttled near there and named after the city it is in), not for people and no-one died in war related to this ship. Also Australians do seem to be less serious towards our defence forces and war history than some other countries.

Re: the guns and decommissioned tanks at the Australian War Memorial. You're not allowed to climb on them, there's signs around saying that. Not that it stops people of all ages. And I think Australians are becoming more respectful towards our war history. Every year the number of people going to ANZAC Day ceremonies grows.

I'd been teaching his son in reading about silent e, and how it makes vowels say their name rather than their short sound (e.g. hop vs hope, sit vs site, etc.) which is useful, since there are literally hundreds of such words in English, including a lot of very common ones.

The dirty word? "nude" ...

I loved your story, but I'm sitting here wondering what a 'nud' would be?

I take it that some words were just random words without a "no silent e" counterpart?

Of course there's the fact that for many of us, "nude" doesn't fit the silent-e-makes-vowels-say-their name "rule." I pronounce it "nood" not "newd"; (to keep it on topic) how about "rude"? Pretty much all of those "rules" are worthless in English. It would be fine if there were just a couple of exceptions but there are almost as many exceptions as examples that conform. I may be weird, but I think i-before-e is another worthless one; who needs a "rule" that has two exceptions built in and lots of counter-examples, even to the exceptions? But perhaps I should rein in my irritation and stop being so scientific about it.

As someone who teaches this sort of thing, and who has observed literally hundreds of children learn and practice such rules before picking up a book and being able to read it for the first time, let me assure you that there are several extremely useful rules in English, where it's much easier to learn a single rule and a dozen exceptions than to just memorise the spelling and pronunciation of several hundred otherwise easy-to-learn words. I before e is not such a rule--it's often used as an example of English spelling rules and it's a terrible one, because the exceptions greatly outnumber the adherents. It's out of date and isn't even taught here or in Australia any more, nor has it been for decades, because it's so useless. Actual rules like whether or not a c is soft (basically always unless it's followed by an e, i, or y) are tremendously useful, and their exceptions are terribly few and often not words a child would even know. Silent k and g is another rule we teach: if a word starts with kn/gn, then the k/g is silent. The exceptions are incredibly few, and aren't words that even the majority of adults would know.

Here, "nude" is pronounced "nyood", if that helps. And I didn't go into detail because I felt it wasn't relevant to my original post, but the magic e and u actually has two options: u can either say "yoo" or just "oo" depending on the word. There is a reason for this which is technical and irrelevant here. But of the two options, only ever one is an actual word, and the other is gibberish, so you always know what to go with. I have lists of all English words (found in the dictionary, anyway) for each rule (typically hundreds or thousands depending on the rule) and all their exceptions (often a few dozen at most). So let me please assure you that there are not "almost as many exceptions as examples that conform" at all.

I doubt it would help with the very strange father in the original post, though.

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If the wall is part of the memorial I would liken it to allowing a child to climb on head stones in a grave yard.

Exactly. It's disrespectful. Go climb on a wall in a park if you want to. A memorial is not the place to play on.

I disagree especially in this case as this memorial is for a ship (which was scuttled near there and named after the city it is in), not for people and no-one died in war related to this ship. Also Australians do seem to be less serious towards our defence forces and war history than some other countries.

It could have been a memorial to a llama farm, but there would not be a guarantee that the wall had been approved as child-safe.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."